Michelle Sagara

Continuing the typing of a long contract from Ballantine/Random House. This is clause 4, and only clause 4, because it's so damn long. There's not much to say here. There are a couple of clauses that were struck out after the initial phone call mentioned a ways down. Usually, this would be done by an agent's assistant and the publisher's legal department, rather than by an agent and editor. If you were doing this yourself, it would be you -- but I'm not sure if you'd be bounced to the publisher's legal department, or if poor HE would be forced to field these and pass them on. They all have to be ironed out, demonstrably, before you get the contracts to sign.
( less anecdote in this one; more boring. You know the drill. )

kchew, known to some of you as Kristen or klc, has started an LJ which is almost entirely about what she's reading. As she reads almost everything -- when her small son will let her -- it's an interesting Journal, especially to those of us who can then at least have a passing acquaintance with some of the things she's writing about.

She's been an acquiring editor for UofT Press (University of Toronto, just in case some of you hail from Texas), and also for the trade publishing house James Lorrimar runs (name of which escapes me, and yes, I'm being lazy), and has done editing work for Jane Siberry (whee!), but she's a touch on the shy side, and almost all of her interests run to books and reading. Her house kind of looks like a library. You know, a library that's packed three books deep on a shelve (ETA which would be like a "shelf" except with the sense that you could never ever have one of them. Okay, no it's a typo. But it's kind of a subconscious typo which indicates that my house, sadly, looks a lot the same), with books on dressers and tables and every possible space that's flat and unoccupied.

John Scalzi is at it again. His tongue-and-cheek categorization of "real world" deals, a poke at Publishers Lunch (which impressed me in large part because I confess I've read exactly 2 paragraphs of Publishers Lunch; it's eye-glazingly boring, and transmits not a lot of useful information. Well, to be fair, not a lot in the paragraphs that I managed to take in the single time I tried) seems to have caused a bit of annoyance.

http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/archives/001135.html

Scalzi says some of what I've said here, but in more concentrated form, and with his usual dollop of wit & observation.

Okay, this deserves its own whatever-it-is-these-are-called (not comments, not threads?).

dancinghorse replied to my previous post on agenting, and she raises points that are all valid; I want them to have a wider audience, and I also want to wedge my take between her words, to add to what she said, rather than bury it.

( Read more... )

Unreasonable things that authors expect from their agents:
( list and sundry comments )

I forgot to mention something. Now that I've gotten sleep, there are probably many other things I should have forgotten to mention <wry g>.
( Lois McMaster Bujold anecdote )

Thud.

I think the Noreascon people outdid themselves in terms of programming. This is the politic way of saying that there was so darned much of it that it would have taken me just as long to read the new Stephenson as it did to go through the program book weeping. The weeping is, of course, a direct result of the tantalizing things I didn't get to see. I personally think that, as Terry Pratchett was the guest of honour, they did the L-space maneuver and translated it into programming tracks.

This may get longish, but I'm also fighting the world's worst headache, and have not yet succumbed to con cruddlies, so it may be suprising in its brevity.

Nah.

( Read more... )

Today, shelving books at the store, I picked up the CATWOMAN movie novelization, and realized it had been written by Elizabeth Hand. She's done at least three tie-ins that I know of (and possibly more -- listen to the sound of me being too lazy to go to amazon.com and look it up), but I always feel a little shock when I see her name on one. Why? Perception, I think. Her novels have always been treated seriously (and they should be), and her writing has always garnered critical praise in the genre (and sometimes outside of it). Which doesn't mean she doesn't need to eat.
( Read more... )

That said, is anyone in need of a gmail account?

Can anyone tell me what a serial adder is? And, if it's what the name implies, what the point of being one is?

I feel the need to preface this one with a big disclaimer: I'm not an editor, I'm not a publisher, I'm not an agent. These ramblings are my observations, but I observe only what it's in my nature to observe, and while I attempt objectivity, am fully aware that I achieve filtered subjectivity.

Many, many writers would disagree with what I've said in places. I'm not trying to discuss process because, frankly, there are so many excellent writers on LJ who do just that -- but I feel I have to stress the fact that the discussion of a business-eye-view isn't the only thing that's important.

Okay. yhlee asked a question about series books, which I'm rambling about here.
( Read more... )